Jennifer Donnelly Quotes

I try to imagine what the greatest song I could ever write would sound like, and then try to do it.

In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of.

With writing music and writing songs and recording music and coming up with stuff, you need to kind of reengage that kind of inner child to come up with interesting perceptions.

I love originating shows and originating songs - there is nothing better than being the first one to get to do a song.

I can't legislate a song into being; it just will not happen for me.

You don't know how much artists go through to make it look so easy. It's all in the practice.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

Sometimes I'll come up with a lick that I really love, and I'll try to put the right words to it for years. Suddenly something comes to me that works just right.

Making music and writing kind of come from the same creative place.

I like the challenge of writing music without being the coolest guy or band in the room.

You're always thinking about making new music.

I am always writing music. I have got unlimited ideas because I have been clean and sober for my entire life.

Music is an amazing thing. I don't know if we really think about it the same way we consider a painting an amazing thing. I mean, a painting is, in quotes, imaginary. There is nothing on the canvas when you start; and writing a song, there is nothing there when you start.

I can only write songs when somebody gives me some water to swim in. Otherwise, I'm a fish on the beach.

When I'm writing [songs], some days the pen just goes. I'm not in charge and I'm almost listening outside of it. That's when I realize that we all have to start looking at life as a gift. It's like listening to a color and believing that these colors have soul mates and once you get them all together the painting is complete.

A composer is not only an architect but also an inventor, and he should not build houses in which he cannot live.

I do more writing by myself than with anybody else. My best thing is sitting...around somewhere with a guitar, and having an idea. You never know where it'd come from. Songwriting is a God-given talent.

Writing songs always trumps whatever else was on the schedule, it really is the most important and can be so fickle, you have to grab it when it's there.

I like writing melody without an instrument. It's just so - it's more like the choreography of a bee; you just go.

Songwriting is best. It's the hardest ... finest ... tightest. It also requires the most discipline.

My hope is to continue to make new music and go with the flow. I think I'll always be creative. I want to keep making good music, put myself into positions where I need to rise to the occasion of playing in front of an audience, and continually get better at what I'm doing.

I don't know that I make a big distinction between the big pieces and the little pieces, because I don't experience them in that way. I mean, by the same token, you're out touring with a band and then you're writing string quartets, and in a funny way, isn't it all the same, in a way? It's all just music.

I had always been more interested in playing and improvising than sitting down at a desk and writing out a piece. I'd always found it more fun to play, and the other a little bit tedious. I always had trouble with the decisions.

Writing music always happened for me in periods when I wasn't under the influence of mind-altering substance.

It's rather mystifying when you think about writing songs - where they come from, and how they're born.